‘If the law is stopped, we lose 25 million euros in investments’

The Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP) warned today that halting the adoption of the law on entertainment and special gaming machines prevents investments worth 25 million euros, and ‘removes’ 66 million kuna annually from county budgets.

The rejection of this law would cause significant damage to domestic manufacturers of entertainment games and machines, some of whom have already invested in new capacities due to the expected favorable effects of the law on production, HUP emphasizes.

They remind that the Coordination of Manufacturers and Organizers of Entertainment and Special Gaming Machines within HUP – the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises initiated the adoption of a law that would regulate the domestic entertainment games industry, given that the current legal framework, which has been in force for over 10 years, is inadequate.

The Ministry of Finance initiated the procedure for adopting the law on entertainment and special gaming machines in the first half of this year, it was accepted by the Government, and after the first reading in the Parliament where it was accepted by a majority vote, it was sent for a second reading with the intention of coming into force on January 1, 2013. However, in the meantime, the procedure for adopting the law has been halted, and according to the deadlines from the Rules of Procedure of the Croatian Parliament, if this law does not go to a second reading by the end of this week, it will be rejected from the procedure.

The Coordination emphasizes that a clearly defined and regulated market for entertainment games would eliminate the gray economy, open space for new investments in domestic production of around 25 million euros, and enable the creation of new jobs.

Also, according to calculations made by the Ministry of Finance itself, the revenue for local government units collecting taxes on entertainment gaming machines would increase from the current 10 million kuna to 76.8 million kuna annually.

They also note that the industry, in which about 800 people are directly and indirectly employed within 200 domestic companies, records particular success in the global market, with 4 out of the 10 largest global manufacturers of dart machines being from Croatia.

The EU market has been developing in recent years towards new, special gaming machines with minimal profit, while the Croatian legislative framework prevents their legal installation. Domestic manufacturers, who have started producing such machines and have the status of premium manufacturers in the European market, cannot sell these machines in Croatia due to the lack of regulation.